A feminist version of 'Joe Millionaire'?
By Wendy McElroy
web posted May 24, 2004
The popular reality show "Joe Millionaire" chronicled a fierce
competition among 20 women to marry a man who was
advertised as a multi-millionaire but who was actually a low-paid
construction worker. Audiences squirmed as the contestants
portrayed women as stereotypical, money-grubbing, superficial
social climbers.
Recently, I attended a colloquium on the disparity between the
number of women earning college degrees compared to that of
men, and found myself to be a squirming audience member.
Although the participants were supposed to be addressing a
widely discussed phenomenon spotlighted by a 2003 study
entitled "The Growing Gender Gaps in College Enrollment and
Degree Attainment in the U.S. and Their Potential Economic and
Social Consequences," the participants' focus was on their own
personal prospects for marriage and those of their daughters.
"My daughter will have to marry down," stated a sociologist at
the colloquium, meaning that her daughter would have to "settle"
for a husband with less education and a lower income. A black
sociologist added that for years, women in her peer group have
had to marry down if they wanted to marry at all.
The study, conducted by Andrew Sum and colleagues, revealed
that, in 2003, over 56 percent of college students were women.
It concluded, "In every major age and race-ethnic group, women
across the nation now enroll in college, persist in college, and
graduate from college at considerably higher rates than men."
The changing ratio of female to male students is a social
phenomenon worthy of speculation. As women assume the role
of breadwinner, are men becoming less economically driven?
Does an anti-male bias in education discourage male
advancement, as another study suggests?
Yet, the concern of the colloquium participants was a growing
trend of women marrying men who were less educated and
earned less money than they did. Minority women expressed the
greatest concern … and with reason. According to the Sum
study, "in 1999-2000, for every 100 degrees awarded to Black
men, Black women were awarded 188 associate degrees, 192
bachelor degrees, and 221 master's degrees." Hispanic women
earned nearly 130 degrees for every 100 awarded to Hispanic
men. Sum concluded that highly educated women would have to
consider "marrying down." He labeled the prospect as "a serious
economic and cultural problem."
Sum's conclusion has been echoed in popular articles. For
example, an ABC News article, subtitled "College Gender Gap
Could Mean Women Lose Mating Game," asked, "Must
Women Go Slummin'?"
My emotional response to the colloquium was swift and sharply
negative.
First, I suspect that a social problem is in the process of being
manufactured. At every juncture in women's lives today,
sociologists and hype-hungry media seem eager to discover a
social crisis. We're too thin; we're too fat. We're career
obsessed; we're quitting work to become housewives. Now,
after decades of urging girls to become Ph.D.s, women are
suddenly discovered to be too educated for their own good.
The increase in well-educated women should elicit sustained
applause that is tempered only by concern about equal access to
education for males. There is no more of a "marriage crisis" now
than there was when male students dominated campuses.
Moreover, the perceived problem is self-solving. When the
Australian newspaper The Age, reported a similar "problem" --
"there are an astonishing 47,000 more women than men with
degrees in this age group [age 25 to 29]" -- it included the
solution. Census figures for 2001 showed that 12 percent of
women aged 25 to 29 with university degrees married men
without them.
Marriage is a healthy institution that adapts quickly to
circumstance; marriage patterns may be shifting to adjust. There
is a "marriage crisis" only for women and in-laws who demand
an attorney or doctor for a husband and do not wish to welcome
a plumber or mechanic into the family. This is their personal
problem, not a social one. Indeed, if marrying down constituted
a crisis, society would have collapsed long ago from the
tendency of men to wed "below their station." Marrying down is
called a social crisis only when women's choices appear to be
limited. This reflects both hypocrisy and elitism.
As I listened to colloquium participants discuss marrying down,
two truths became clear although neither was explicitly
acknowledged. First, the same women who argued for minority
rights, a more balanced equality, and advancement of the
underprivileged seemed to be genuinely horrified at the prospect
of dealing with "lesser" and "lower" men as equals in their
personal lives. Second, "lesser" and "lower" was being defined
solely with reference to income and formal education.
By their definition, my mother married down. She was a high
school graduate; my father had a sixth-grade education. Yet no
one in my family ever viewed the intelligent and loving man my
father was as lesser and lower than my mother. At the cocktail
hour following the colloquium, I mentioned my father to several
participants as a counter-example to their concerns. One woman
gave an amazing response. She said there was little difference
between a high school and sixth-grade education, but a
significant schism between a college and high school education.
In short, marrying down was not a problem for women, per se,
but only for upper-class women.
I didn't bother to follow-up with the suggestion that "lesser" and
"lower" should be defined according to a man's character, not his
income.
I still squirm at the thought of how many successful women now
seem to view a large percentage of decent single men. Namely,
as lesser and lower.
Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research
fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the
author and editor of many books and articles, including the new
book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st
Century" (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives
with her husband in Canada.
Enter Stage Right -- http://www.enterstageright.com